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"Tackling the Mideast nuclear conundrum" by Ezzedine Choukri Fishere
From time to time, the
Palestine Center
distributes
articles it believes will enhance understanding
of the Palestinian
political
reality. The following article by
Ezzedine Choukri
Fishere was
published in Foreign Policy
on 21 April 2010. To view
this article online, please go to http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/21/tackling_the_mideast_nuclear_conundrum.
"Tackling the Mideast
nuclear conundrum"
By Ezzedine Choukri
Fishere
President Barack Obama's
nuclear summit of 47 world leaders last week
aimed to address a major flaw in the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty (NPT): namely, its
neglect of non-state actors. In this regard,
the summit was a success, as it laid the
foundation for creating safeguards against
non-state actors' acquisition of weapons-grade
nuclear material. However, the other major flaw
of the NPT--its inability to achieve universal
membership--remains unattended to.
The Washington
nuclear summit contributes to re-establishing
US leadership in the nuclear nonproliferation
business, especially after the signing of the
‘New START' treaty and the release of a more
engaging Nuclear Posture Review. President
Obama can now capitalize on these successes and
take steps to improve the universality of NPT.
That would affirm US leadership and at the same
time improve global security
significantly.
The fact that India, Israel
and Pakistan remain outside the scope of the
NPT and exempt from any kind of international
inspection of their nuclear activities has been
a major obstacle in expanding the
nonproliferation treaty. India and Pakistan
have found a modus operandi, regulated to a
large extent by an active US involvement. In a
way it is both easier and less urgent to
integrate them in the NPT.
In the Middle
East, however, the situation is more troubling
and continues to generate serious risks for the
world as a whole. Iran seems like the most
compelling case at hand, but it is important to
remember that Israel's policy of nuclear
ambiguity also stands in the way of
establishing a regional security regime in the
region. In the multilateral security talks that
followed the 1991 Madrid Conference, Israel
adamantly refused to discuss its nuclear
program unless conventional and unconventional
threats of its neighbors were addressed first
(including those posed by Iran and Saddam's
Iraq). Conversely, Arab states insisted on
including Israel's nuclear weapons in the
discussion before any security arrangement
could be agreed. As a result, the talks
collapsed and were never revived in the years
since. Had the US intervened 15 years ago and
led Arab states and Israel towards overcoming
their tit-for-tat attitude, a Mideast security
regime, with confidence-building measures,
safeguards and verification mechanisms, would
probably have emerged by now.
Both the US and
actors in the region need to start a dialogue
on all security concerns in the Middle East
that includes the nuclear issues. And they need
to start this dialogue now, and
urgently.
Such a dialogue would help
address a number of challenges at the same
time. First, it would lay to rest the
complaints about double standards in the
nonproliferation community and relieve the US -
and Israel - from the untenable claim that
Israel's nuclear arsenal should somehow be
treated as exceptional (a claim that nobody
outside Washington and Tel Aviv gives serious
consideration). The double-standard argument
has been the most successful weapon against
nonproliferation, especially in mobilizing
public support for nuclear projects like those
of Saddam's Iraq, Ghaddafi's Libya or Iran (and
you will hear a lot about it in the coming
weeks leading up to the NPT review). Second,
such a dialogue would significantly decrease
the pressure on Arab governments to start their
own nuclear programs and abort what could be
the beginning of a nuclear race in the region.
Third, this dialogue would pave the way for the
establishment of a Middle East security regime,
which could be the vehicle for addressing a
wide range of security hazards in this troubled
and troubling region. Finally, such a dialogue
might offer a framework for addressing Iran's
problematic nuclear activities, especially if
accompanied by a package of stabilizing
confidence-building measures.
What is needed
here is a non-ideological, non-divisive,
practical approach to the nuclear issues in the
Middle East that takes into account legitimate
security needs of all players. Rhetoric aside,
the security concerns of Israel, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, the Gulf States, Iran, Syria and
Turkey are mutually dependent and cannot be
addressed separately. A comprehensive regime
can offer each party the assurances that are
vital to its own security, and require it to
provide assurances to others.
By pursuing
this goal, the Obama Administration can lead
the transformation of the security landscape in
the Middle East. No other party has the
strategic wherewithal to pursue this goal. And
few other interventions could bring the US
administration such comparable dividends in the
short term.
Ezzedine Choukri
Fishere is professor of international
politics at the American University in Cairo
and a former advisor to the Egyptian foreign
minister and also to the
UN's
Middle East envoy in Jerusalem.
The
views
expressed in this article are those of the
authors and do not
necessarily
reflect
those of The Jerusalem Fund.
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